The Trouble With Making Souffles in the TARDIS
by RandomVictorian
Summary: Clara's souffles are always...to beautiful to live. But when she starts pulling crazy things out of the oven instead of souffles, she suspects that it's just the TARDIS being an old cow again... Eleven/Clara. There may be whouffle...meaning of course there will be whouffle!


**Since my longer fic is getting rather serious and dark, I wanted to write a cute, humorous, fluffy one shot. So here we go. **

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At first, I didn't suspect any foul play. I mean, sure, the souffles I made on the TARDIS always turned out bad, but my souffles were _always_...too beautiful to live. They always came out wrong. In fact, sometimes they didn't even resemble a souffle. I mean, I've had pieces of brown stuff floating in liquid come out of that oven, when the batter that went into it couldn't have been more perfect. A couple of times I've even thought that maybe I'm just never going to be souffle girl and should give up.

But then things started to get a little...weird. I put a souffle in the oven one day and pulled out a loaf of bread. I'm not joking and I'm not crazy. It was literally just a loaf of bread. Not even the souffle dish was anywhere to be found. Just a loaf of bread standing all by itself in the oven. I stared at it for quite awhile, and searched the oven like a hungry dog, not understanding where my souffle had gone. Eventually, I realised that the loaf of bread was all the oven would yield. Which was weird. There are a lot of ways souffles can go wrong. You can get the timing bad, or not have good ingredients, or have the oven temperature off, or not get your eggs fluffy enough...just a million ways to mess up a souffle. But at the end of the day, the souffle isn't the souffle, the souffle is the recipe-that's what my mum always said. And I had definitely not used a recipe for bread.

I didn't mention it to the Doctor, because he teased me enough about my souffles without me telling him about this latest one. Besides, I was very tired from our latest adventure, and I supposed it was possible that I somehow did something like put a loaf of bread in the oven instead of the souffle dish. Or something like that. I didn't believe it, but there was no other explanation.

The next day, I pulled a beautifully cooked turkey out of the oven. I was every bit myself, and I had definitely just put a chocolate souffle in that oven. I watched it very closely to avoid another bread incident, only looking away for a moment. I looked back, and there it was. A turkey.

I served it to the Doctor. 'This is amazing Clara. Just amazing! But I thought you were making a souffle?'

'Uh...last minute change of plans.'

Well, this was weird. I knew the TARDIS didn't like me much, and I knew that she was behind it. I was not going to take this lying down. The next day, I told the Doctor to go ahead and take an adventure without me. I was determined that by the time the day was done, I was going to pull a souffle out of the oven. I didn't even care if it failed, but by the Doctor's bowtie, it was going to be a souffle, and not a loaf of bread or a turkey.

I pulled out a fez.

And this kept happening. I pulled out a plate of jammy dodgers, a very long and really cool trench coat, a scarf that seemed to go forever, some celery, a banana, a bowtie of course...eventually I stopped keeping track. The last straw came one day when I opened the oven and saw the Doctor curled up inside it. I almost had a heart-attack.

He seemed just as frightened, which dispelled the brief notion that it was some sort of joke on his part. 'Are you trying to kill me?' he asked, looking sincerely afraid.

I rolled my eyes. 'Get out of there! Aren't you burning up?'

He shook his head. 'Actually, it's not even hot.'

The oven was turned off. That proved it was the TARDIS, because I had that oven going at 180 degrees a second ago, and ovens definitely did not cool off that fast. The inside of the oven was cold.

'How did you get in there?'

'I don't know! I was fiddling about with the console and all of a sudden, there you are, peering at me through the door of an oven.'

'It's all your awful old cow's fault. She's been switching my souffles with random things! I've been pulling out bowties and trenchcoats and scarves and fezzes and jammy dodgers and celery and bananas and all sorts of things! That turkey dinner I served you? When that went into the oven, that was a souffle.'

He started laughing.

'Glad you find it so funny.'

'Well, it really sort of is.'

I stood there for a moment, glaring at him dangerously, but he ignored me and kept laughing. Pretty soon, I was laughing too. I couldn't help it. It _was_ sort of funny.

Eventually, he stopped laughing and said, 'I need to get out of here. This oven is definitely not bigger on the inside.'

I smiled and helped him out. Then I started getting out the ingredients for another souffle, because I just can't seem to give up on the blasted things.

The Doctor was grinning at me the whole time. Finally, I said, 'What's so funny?'

'Nothing. It's just, you know she's jealous of you?'

'Who? The TARDIS?'

He nodded.

'I don't know why. I'm not the first one you've brought home,' I said, as I smeared butter around the inside of the souffle dish.

'But you're the first one in a long time that I've...'

I put the butter and the souffle bowl down, crossing my arms and narrowing my eyes. 'You've what?'

'That I've...thought was rather...funny...and pretty...'

I had to check for a moment that there was no cyber-thing on his face. Nope, just the Doctor. Which meant... And suddenly there was this feeling in my chest that was rising like a perfect souffle.

'I thought you said I wasn't pretty,' I said, just to test him.

'I-I didn't mean...'

'You said that I'm short and bossy and my nose is all funny.'

'Yes...you have to admit that every word of that is true. But I didn't mean...I wouldn't change one thing about you-I love every single inch of you!'

I raised my eyebrows and smirked. I couldn't help it. It's fun to get him flustered.

'I mean...shut up!'

'I didn't say anything.'

'Still shut up!'

'So why does the TARDIS not like me then?'

'She always looks out for me. And she always knows that things don't turn out well when I...'

'When you...?'

'When I...start to have human-y feelings...about humans...'

This couldn't really be happening. I had to be dreaming. Or the TARDIS was making me hallucinate just to be mean. On a whim, I reached out and touched his arm.

'Why did you do that?'

'To make sure you were real, not some kind of trick of the TARDIS.'

I don't know what happened, but a second later, he had grabbed me and was kissing me.

'Wha-why did you do that?' I asked.

'To show you that I am real.'

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**Ach I know, corny and odd. But I just wanted to write something light for a change! **


End file.
